[Tex Pro]

(12-22-2013 06:20 PM)thedude3737 Wrote:  

(12-22-2013 04:59 PM)The Texas Prophet Wrote:  

It will be interesting to see what happens when China surpasses the USA and becomes the world's superpower.

Yeah we heard in the 80s how Japan was going to be the next superpower, and now look. We've heard Brazil too.

Being a giant manufacturing plant does not equal superpower status. China has size, and resources, and that's it. Most people there are dirt poor who don't even have indoor plumbing.

This isn't some pro-U.S. rally but this China as the next superpower thing is a joke to me. They have massive exports and little else going for them. The U.S. still has, by far, the world's largest GDP.

China's nominal GDP is low because they are currency manipulators. They peg their currency against the USD to have cheap exports.

Their PPP GDP is already close to ours. China is the future.

[Veloce]

(12-22-2013 06:23 PM)The Texas Prophet Wrote:  

(12-22-2013 06:20 PM)thedude3737 Wrote:  

(12-22-2013 04:59 PM)The Texas Prophet Wrote:  

It will be interesting to see what happens when China surpasses the USA and becomes the world's superpower.

Yeah we heard in the 80s how Japan was going to be the next superpower, and now look. We've heard Brazil too.

Being a giant manufacturing plant does not equal superpower status. China has size, and resources, and that's it. Most people there are dirt poor who don't even have indoor plumbing.

This isn't some pro-U.S. rally but this China as the next superpower thing is a joke to me. They have massive exports and little else going for them. The U.S. still has, by far, the world's largest GDP.

China's nominal GDP is low because they are currency manipulators. They peg their currency against the USD to have cheap exports.

Their PPP GDP is already close to ours. China is the future.

I would argue their PPP GDP is inflated due to their low costs of production, which we're seeing is taking a toll on the country and its people. Their production is incredibly unsustainable and eventually you'll see their costs rise dramatically which will drop their PPP GDP like a ton of bricks.

[Tex Pro]

(12-22-2013 06:44 PM)thedude3737 Wrote:  

(12-22-2013 06:23 PM)The Texas Prophet Wrote:  

(12-22-2013 06:20 PM)thedude3737 Wrote:  

(12-22-2013 04:59 PM)The Texas Prophet Wrote:  

It will be interesting to see what happens when China surpasses the USA and becomes the world's superpower.

Yeah we heard in the 80s how Japan was going to be the next superpower, and now look. We've heard Brazil too.

Being a giant manufacturing plant does not equal superpower status. China has size, and resources, and that's it. Most people there are dirt poor who don't even have indoor plumbing.

This isn't some pro-U.S. rally but this China as the next superpower thing is a joke to me. They have massive exports and little else going for them. The U.S. still has, by far, the world's largest GDP.

China's nominal GDP is low because they are currency manipulators. They peg their currency against the USD to have cheap exports.

Their PPP GDP is already close to ours. China is the future.

I would argue their PPP GDP is inflated due to their low costs of production, which we're seeing is taking a toll on the country and its people. Their production is incredibly unsustainable and eventually you'll see their costs rise dramatically which will drop their PPP GDP like a ton of bricks.

We'll see. The great thing is most economists predict China will be bigger than the USA by 2020, so we don't have to wait long to find out. I personally am bullish on China because they have a smart population and actually manufacture things, unlike the USA which can only produce Kim Kardashian b-list celebs.

[AnonymousBosch]

(12-22-2013 06:20 PM)thedude3737 Wrote:  

This isn't some pro-U.S. rally but this China as the next superpower thing is a joke to me. They have massive exports and little else going for them. The U.S. still has, by far, the world's largest GDP.

And is $17 trillion in debt, mainly to itself due to the cost of federal government (federal reserve, retirement, disablity, social security), but a large chunk to China and Japan. That's the danger.

[Aliblahba]

(12-22-2013 07:00 PM)AnonymousBosch Wrote:  

And is $17 trillion in debt, mainly to itself due to the cost of federal government (federal reserve, retirement, disablity, social security), but a large chunk to China and Japan. That's the danger.

Obama's working on the debt. That'll be a non-issue by 2017.

[Volk]

I feel it for you guys because it does seem that you want to love your country but for many of you it's too far gone. For me, it can all sink if it has to, tho. I won't bs anyone, I don't care about the future of the US.

[Vitriol]

(12-22-2013 04:04 PM)Libertas Wrote:  

I've always been of the opinion that 90% of the population are mindless zombies that will blindly follow the crowd. It's really then up to that 10% of people who are self-aware.

It's easy to say all is lost, but really you only tend to say that because you observe the actions of the other 90%.

I'm more or less with Quintus on this one. To be in that 10% means you can become an island and a bulwark of light and preserve what is worth preserving, network with other guys that are and build monasteries so to speak.

In American culture, we're conditioned to think that if everyone has the right opportunities and circumstances they can become a doctor or a professional athlete. The ancients had a much better perspective which included people naturally forming hierarchies. There are tons of people out there who just aren't that bright or talented, and even more who lack the drive or work ethic to ever do much with their lives.

Throughout history, great individuals have always found a way to make their lives exceptional regardless of what was going on around them. Some of us are already well on our way. The only long term solution that we know will work is to improve ourselves. Keeping that in mind, I try to think of a lot of the political and cultural problems in the U.S. as background noise. Fortunately, unless you get married, have to pay child support, or get in criminal trouble, we still have enough freedom to do what we need in order to improve ourselves, make money, and slay pussy without too much direct interference in our lives.

That being said, my biggest concerns are the growing police and surveillance state rather than something like Feminism which is easy to avoid by just not associating with certain people (even if 90% of them are too dumb to think for themselves and you have to choose friends carefully). We're going down the path of becoming a country where you "just don't talk about certain things" because it's not politically correct. Democracy, Feminism, and some other topics are becoming sacred cows where they're the "end point" of politics and it's assumed that there's no better way. That's a really dangerous way of thinking.

To summarize: it generally isn't a problem that most people can't think critically, but in a Democracy where the majority rules, it can become a big fucking problem.

[Cattle Rustler]

(12-22-2013 06:15 PM)The Texas Prophet Wrote:  

(12-22-2013 06:03 PM)Cattle Rustler Wrote:  

(12-22-2013 04:59 PM)The Texas Prophet Wrote:  

Is America worth saving??? Who knows.

It will be interesting to see what happens when China surpasses the USA and becomes the world's superpower. The USA won't be as prosperous anymore since the dollar will no longer be the world's reserve currency. Maybe that will change the USA or maybe not. Doesn't hurt to have an exit strategy.

People said the same thing about the Russians and Japanese....

Just look where those countries are at the moment.

The difference is China is a massive country population-wise compared to Russia and Japan...hell, it is a massive country population-wise compared to the USA.

China doesn't have anything of value, they just build stuff. In fact, wages have risen so fat that clothing has moved to thailand, pakistan, and vietnam. Many Chinese kids are graduating from college and can't find good jobs either. Long story short, there's not enough good to spread around and it will cause issues with the gubbmint.

Unhealthy cities
Shortage of women
Population imbalance (too few young people, too many old people)
High cost of living
lack of "upward" jobs
increase in manufacturing costs

All the above are going to cause trouble for the Chinese government. They can't keep people suppressed forever.

[Feisbook Control]

(12-22-2013 03:22 PM)iknowexactly Wrote:  

(12-22-2013 02:53 PM)Aliblahba Wrote:  

The problem is, when America tanks, most of the world will be looking worse, and the places that don't aren't going to be welcoming strangers in at that point.

Almost all places, say Switzerland, will welcome your money.

This is just my observation from what I've read online, but Switzerland is fast jumping the shark. Look at that whole movement for a minimum income for every citizen. Look at how heavily other Western nations are leaning on Switzerland about being a tax haven. On the other hand, they have banned minarets and they do have guns, so perhaps all is not lost.

[commiejoe]

I don't think China will go very far. They're fast becoming a nation of overweight males, dubbed "little emperors".

edit - quick link;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Emperor_Syndrome

https://www.google.com/search?q=little+e...16&bih=499

my favourite pic:

[Hotwheels]

(12-22-2013 08:20 PM)commiejoe Wrote:  

I don't think China will go very far. They're fast becoming a nation of overweight males, dubbed "little emperors".

edit - quick link;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Emperor_Syndrome

https://www.google.com/search?q=little+e...16&bih=499

my favourite pic:

At least he's exercising....

[J.J.]

(12-22-2013 06:50 PM)The Texas Prophet Wrote:  

I personally am bullish on China because they have a smart population and actually manufacture things, unlike the USA which can only produce Kim Kardashian b-list celebs.

You mean other than every single relevant invention of the past century like TV, internet, twitter, prescription drugs, GPS, Cell phone, etc. What has that "smart" population invented recently?

[WestCoast]

Oh god and this thread is officially going full force into retardation mode now.

Fade fade fade away like Kobe in his prime. Fade.

[Hotwheels]

(12-22-2013 08:40 PM)J.J. Wrote:  

(12-22-2013 06:50 PM)The Texas Prophet Wrote:  

I personally am bullish on China because they have a smart population and actually manufacture things, unlike the USA which can only produce Kim Kardashian b-list celebs.

You mean other than every single relevant invention of the past century like TV, internet, twitter, prescription drugs, GPS, Cell phone, etc. What has that "smart" population invented recently?

Twitter?

Really?

[Feisbook Control]

This (or a variation) is a subject I have been spending a lot of time thinking about for the past year. I'm not sure that there are necessarily any panaceas though. I've lived in Taiwan for six and a half years. I've lived in other countries outside of the developed West also. I've been to a fair number of countries. Every country has its pros and cons and it's always a matter of trade offs. I will probably remain in Taiwan for about another five years, but I can't see myself remaining here long term. Even aside from the possibility of it ever getting reabsorbed into China (peacefully or not so peacefully), there are a whole lot of things that I just think will never change about this place. I live outside the developed north (I lived there for the first few years and the population density and its secondary effects were just too much), and it's very much the second world here, perhaps even third world in places. There are also absolutely enormous cultural and philosophical differences, even amongst the upper middle class. I could end up writing an enormous essay about all of that, but I won't. One of the main points for me is that I do want to have kids within the next few years as I am pushing forty, but I'm not sure that this is the place I want to raise them. I realise that my age and objectives in life are probably quite different to a lot of guys here, but many of you may eventually find yourself asking the same questions in a decade or two if you ever want to have any kind of legacy.

Yet I am not sure about the alternatives to where I am now. I have considered other places outside the developed West. In five years or so, I should be wealthy enough that living outside of the developed West would be very easy from a financial point of view. It kind of is/would be now, but I'd like to increase my number a bit more first. That is not really the issue for me though because I wouldn't have such a large amount of money that I could essentially be at some next level kind of insulation as enjoyed by the top 0.1%. As such, I would have to live in the society and culture.

A while ago, I was considering Chile. Yet I got on an expat forum and read a whole lot of posts there. What was very interesting was how similar many of the complaints were to those by expats in Taiwan. There is a lot of low level bitching and moaning to filter out in each case, but I'm talking about deeper issues. Chile is not the West at the deepest level (in terms of inheriting the ideals of the Enlightenment and so on). A lot of places such as Taiwan or Chile like to pretend that they're on the same level as the developed West (or getting there), but if you scratch the surface, they are not. They are deeply parochial societies where as a foreigner (and you will ALWAYS be a foreigner, no matter how long you live there) you will always have a big target painted on your back, where rule of law is "flexible" (which can work in your favour a lot of the time, but can really screw you when it works against you), and so on. It has been a decade since I was in Eastern Europe, and perhaps it has changed (which I doubt because barring really traumatic events, I think most cultures change extremely slowly), but I got the exact same feeling there. Whilst Latin America, Eastern Europe or Asia may have different things in common with the West, I actually think they have a lot more in common with each other. I think the West is actually the statistical outlier in time and place.

Yet I have grave reservations about ever returning to Australia. There are definitely good points there. Despite what people in Taiwan might like to think, the standard of living is magnitudes better than in Taiwan. The houses are built better, there's tons of green space in cities and unspoilt wilderness, there's far more varied and interesting culture to partake in (especially for someone from a Western background), and so on. Yet you pay through the nose for it. Australia is also a welfare state and I can't see that abating any time soon. Much like everywhere else in the developed West, that and debt are going to have to get much worse before they get better. I wonder if the increased cost of basic living necessities (before you even get to the fun stuff) is worth it. At the very least, if I were to return to Australia, I'd want to keep my money off shore so that the government couldn't get its hands on it.

Yet beyond that, there's also something about the culture that really gets to me. On the one hand, there are likely to be more interesting people there. I am sure that there are some very cultured and interesting people in Taiwan, but I seem to run into them far less frequently than I do from other nationalities. I've met enough backpackers and other random people from around the world to say that the average German or New Zealander is going to have a lot more interesting things to talk about than the average Taiwanese. This place is largely a cultural wasteland, with people obsessed with food, electronic gadgets or pure Facebook status whoring. Even trying to get at the cultured people here is difficult. Language issues not withstanding, Chinese culture is just so completely alien to me. It's an entirely different mythological, literary and philosophical pantheon. At one level, that's obviously true, but at another level, you don't know how true that sort of statement is until you run up against it. There is a massive amount of cultural bedrock that probably can't even be learnt by doing a Ph.D. and becoming a devoted academic for life. I would always be a fish out of water. That might not be quite as pronounced in places that are historically closer to the West (e.g. Latin America or Eastern Europe), but it would still be there.

Yet I also have a really strange relationship with Western culture and specifically with Australian culture. On the one hand, I am obviously Australian and can, and will, never be anything else. Yet so much of what constitutes Australian culture leaves me completely cold. I couldn't name one single member of the Australian Cricket Team or who won the last AFL grand final. On one level, that stuff is superficial, but at another, it's deeply important to the culture. I see myself as being part of a broader Western culture. Yet what is that? In many places, what I might consider Western culture is a complete anachronism now. I find myself completely disinterested, if not appalled, by much of what passes for modern Western culture. Feminism, cultural Marxism, all of the massive consumerist pop-culture, etc. are things that I would not want to expose a wife or children to. I think people underestimate the degree to which such things would seep into your life, even if you live on a property out in the middle of nowhere. The only way to avoid them would be to turn yourself, and your family, into complete hermits or live within a pretty orthodox religious community (and I'm not religious). Is that advisable? Would that even constitute quality of life?

On the one hand, it might be something to say we need to take a stand and look at the long term, but when the barbarians are coming over the hill, the short term is pretty pressing and difficult to live through.

[Hencredible Casanova]

I think the notion that American culture needs to be "saved" sounds pretty conservative. Something an elderly person would say. I'm sure many people felt that way when schools became integrated, or when hip-hop music emerged on the scene in the 80s and 90s, the era that pretty much is the soundtrack of my childhood. So I never want to be that guy that cries about change. I embrace it. Adapt or die like Westcoast says. You can still do what you need to do to hit your goals and live how you want.

[All or Nothing]

(12-22-2013 02:24 PM)Roosh Wrote:  

For a second I thought we were making a dent on feminism, but fat acceptance is making great strides in spite of the fact that obesity is detriment to human health. Heterophobia has yet to peak. "Male privilege" is becoming ingrained in America's cultural fiber. "Rape culture" advocates are making in-roads with kangaroo courts in colleges. The list goes on.

It's nice that the red pill is growing, and that more people are voicing our beliefs in comments of mainstream articles, but it's hard not to look at the general trends and realize that we are on the losing side. Things are getting worse, not better, and I wonder if it's really worth it to save American ideals instead of just helping men outright expatriate. I wonder if it's fruitless to make a stand. I'm far away from what many of you have to personally experience from living and working in America, but from my pleasant European city it's too upsetting to read just about any news coming out of the States. I don't have much hope.

I think what you are doing is right Roosh.

Think about it this way, the Age of Enlightenment occurred from 1650 to 1700. 75 years later the American revolution was started based upon those ideas and the rise of democracy began shortly after.

I personally think that we are entering a new, modern age of enlightenment. Men are beginning to have feelings of dissent as this new technological era is pushing them by the wayside. This forum, ReturnofKings, and other sites like this one take this feelings of dissent and make them realized in concrete words and ideas.

The internet and television have completely changed the rules and society needs to change with this. Right now, the corporate elite have hijacked these changes and are using them to control society for their own benefit on an unprecedented level.

This site is and the ideas that go with it is the natural response to these changes.

We are on the cusp of a new wave of thinking. The ideas are in their infancy and they need more time to develop and coalesce, but when they do, real societal change will happen.

This is not about saving America. It is about enlightening the minds of young men as society continues to fail more and more of them.

[cool]

Save America? Why are you trying to be a part of some grand movement?

Just live your life. We are all tiny specks in the galaxy.

[Veloce]

(12-22-2013 08:51 PM)Hotwheels Wrote:  

(12-22-2013 08:40 PM)J.J. Wrote:  

(12-22-2013 06:50 PM)The Texas Prophet Wrote:  

I personally am bullish on China because they have a smart population and actually manufacture things, unlike the USA which can only produce Kim Kardashian b-list celebs.

You mean other than every single relevant invention of the past century like TV, internet, twitter, prescription drugs, GPS, Cell phone, etc. What has that "smart" population invented recently?

Twitter?

Really?

[Donnington93]

(12-22-2013 02:24 PM)Roosh Wrote:  

"Male privilege" is becoming ingrained in America's cultural fiber. "Rape culture" advocates are making in-roads with kangaroo courts in colleges. The list goes on.

Maybe in coastal areas and in Oberlin, Ohio. I spend a lot of time in flyover country. The kind of place where obesity reigns, but so does a love of country, God, the flag etc

Nobody is talking about this shit. Not that it's any kind of paradise, but I think we are just seeing a very particular dataset here on RVF.

[paninaro]

(12-22-2013 07:49 PM)Cattle Rustler Wrote:  

China doesn't have anything of value, they just build stuff. In fact, wages have risen so fat that clothing has moved to thailand, pakistan, and vietnam. Many Chinese kids are graduating from college and can't find good jobs either. Long story short, there's not enough good to spread around and it will cause issues with the gubbmint.

Unhealthy cities
Shortage of women
Population imbalance (too few young people, too many old people)
High cost of living
lack of "upward" jobs
increase in manufacturing costs

All the above are going to cause trouble for the Chinese government. They can't keep people suppressed forever.

I mostly agree with this view. However, I do think China will surpass the US in GDP, but that's only due to their huge population. They still have a long way to go to become a world power in all facets. Leaving aside their poorly-equipped military and poor diplomacy skills (look at Diaoyu and South China Sea issues for examples), they just have a lot of internal issues.

They still have about half the population who are peasants, and it's going to be a long and expensive path to get them (equivalent to about twice the US population) to a higher standard of living.

Then there's the effects of this rapid industrialization, in the form of pollution. They've now committed $1 trillion in upcoming years to battling this, and even that won't be enough because of the rapid urbanization. There's even been talk of moving the capital out of Beijing because there may be no way to tackle pollution there other than moving some of the population out of there.

Yes, they have spent a lot of money on infrastructure and I'm in awe of the progress and scale of it every time I visit China. But actually, they've spent too much on this type of capital, and not enough on human capital (partly because most of the leaders in China are engineers by training). The productivity and output numbers attest to this. We do see some innovation coming out of China for sure, but not at the rate it should be given their population and scale.

In manufacturing, rising labor costs will continue to bite China in the long-term. By some estimates, 2015 is when they'll really hit the inflection point where for most products, it's cheaper to make them in the US (or Mexico) for the US market, instead of making them in China and shipping them here. I've already started to notice this, since I really pay attention to labels when I buy products. The $1 plastic coat hangers from Target? Made in USA. The $5 chintzy picture frame? Made in USA. What's happening is that US companies are quite good at automation and efficiency and the Chinese are not (because they had cheap labor to rely on). Yes, I bet that plastic coat hanger manufacturer in the US employs just a handful of people, who just watch the machines that make the product, while in China the same factory has people doing a lot of it by hand. Guess which one can scale up and be more productive?

Talking about the decline of the US is nearly as old as the US itself. I view it as a zero-sum game for the most part. If the US is going to lose its leadership position on the world stage, then who will take over?

Certainly not Europe. The competing interests of each EU country means they can rarely act -- look at their inaction in Ukraine the last few weeks as one example. (Yes, the US didn't do much either, but what's going on in Ukraine is primarily a European issue.) On top of that, the EU overall is facing a demographic crisis that many other countries also face -- aging population and declining birthrates. If you look at a list of countries by fertility rate, the bottom of the list is dominated by EU countries.

So who's left to be a world power? Not Russia, not Japan, not Brazil, and I don't think it will be China.

I suppose you could say the US is in decline, but with the caveat that its decline still leaves it in a dominant position relative to any other contenders.

[MattW]

Increasing prevalence of a disease leads to rising demand for prevention.

I took a health economics class in college and one section was on epidemiology. Back in the 60s or 70s, I've forgotten exactly when, standard epidemiology theory was the more people that have a disease the more likely other people will get it and the quicker it will spread, full stop. Makes perfect sense, right? The more people who have disease X the more likely you'll come into contact with someone who has it and will get it yourself.

Then along came some economist who decided to apply his mind to the field and see what he could see. Basically what he theorized and what has since been confirmed and integrated into mainstream epidemiology is that as a disease becomes more and more common and the likelihood that someone will come into contact with it rises, the more people will demand preventative measures which slows the spread of the disease. Once it's spelled out the idea seems so obvious; of course people will be willing to spend their money and time on prevention when the likelihood of catching a costly disease rises high enough. It makes too much sense.

In this corner of the internet I'll occasionally see posts and comments about how society is going downhill fast and the speed of the decline is accelerating, etc. I also see posts and comments about how the tide is turning, the red pill is spreading, people are starting to see through the bullshit of feminism and on and on. To me it's all part of the same story:

There is a decline, the western world has a disease, and it has accelerated over the last 20 years, but as it becomes more widespread more and more normal people are seeing it for what it is and have started to push back, and the spread will slow (perhaps it already is slowing but I don't think anyone can assert that without many years of hindsight; culture doesn't change in a day or a year or even a decade).

And I don't think there's any way to know what the future holds. Will the disease take over completely or will preventative measure eventually turn back the tide? Definitely interesting questions but I don't think anyone can know with any kind of certainty.

[Tail Gunner]

(12-22-2013 09:44 PM)Hencredible Casanova Wrote:  

I think the notion that American culture needs to be "saved" sounds pretty conservative. Something an elderly person would say. I'm sure many people felt that way when schools became integrated, or when hip-hop music emerged on the scene in the 80s and 90s, the era that pretty much is the soundtrack of my childhood. So I never want to be that guy that cries about change. I embrace it. Adapt or die like Westcoast says. You can still do what you need to do to hit your goals and live how you want.

You are confusing two different ideas. Yes, one can adapt -- and even flourish -- almost anywhere. That is not the issue.

People adapted and survived in Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. Change is not always good. I know that from my family history. I had relatives die in the gulags of Siberia.

Everyone should have a contingency plan for the worst. It is better to leave a bad situation a year early rather than an hour late.

[Tail Gunner]

(12-22-2013 07:39 PM)Vitriol Wrote:  

To summarize: it generally isn't a problem that most people can't think critically, but in a Democracy where the majority rules, it can become a big fucking problem.

After fifty-seven posts, someone actually identified the real problem. With more than forty-nine percent of the U.S. population now receiving government benefits, we have a situation where almost a majority of the population has a vested interest in voting for politicians who support the social welfare state. We are right at the point of no return. From an October 23, 2013 news article:

Quote:

In the fourth quarter of 2011, 49.2 percent of Americans received benefits from one or more government programs, according to data released Tuesday by the Census Bureau.

In total, the Census Bureau estimated, 151,014,000 Americans out of a population then estimated to be 306,804,000 received benefits from one or more government programs during the last three months of 2011. Those 151,014,000 beneficiaries equaled 49.2 percent of the population.

http://cnsnews.com/news/article/terence-...s-medicaid


That fact, combined with the fact that no nation in world history has ever survived the level of debt accrued by the U.S. government, means that a recovery from creeping socialism and a burgeoning police state is unlikely.

Ironically, President Obama and VaginaCare has made liberalism so unpopular that we have one last chance to return to a Constitutional Republic -- if voters wake up and sweep constitutionalists into office in 2014 and 2016.

[elabayarde]

(12-22-2013 03:07 PM)SheriffBart Wrote:  

In terms of MRA thinking where you suppose that you'll have some appreciable impact on legal/economic circumstances, I don't believe it's worth the effort. We've crossed the tipping point where the country will just have to learn from their mistakes. Let them have Obamacare, single mother subsidies, gun control, and censorship and see what it gets them. People get the government/society they deserve. I believe the idea of liberty and the Constitution are always available for Americans to turn back to when we realize our mistakes. Let the government and the dollar/economy crash along with all these other ridiculous first world notions our opulence has bought us and go back to the drawing board.

In cultural or intellectual terms, it's always worth fighting off bad philosophy. There are real people out there who can benefit from good perspectives regardless of the direction of the mainstream.

Why can't anyone see that obamacare just forces everyone to get private insuranc, so tax payers don't have to bear the burden of all the homeless, drug addicts, clinical alcoholics who go into the ER for nonsense, to have a bed to sleep in for the night. Ask any emergency medicine professional.